European integration at a crossroads

Abstract

This thesis seeks to examine the occurrence of several political concepts and their influence on the future of European integration. Furthermore, the relevance of those concepts on the societal and political state of a number of selected Member States of the European Union. The overarching concept of the European Union is ambiguous, key players seek to turn the odds in their favour in exchange for power and influence in the world’s most far reaching integration project. The media often portrays most of the newer Member States of the European Union in Central- and Eastern Europe as troublemakers in the Union. Instead, one will find that more or less all Member States are responsible for at least some degree of ‘trouble making behaviour.’ However, the breaches made by several former socialist republics prove to be in bigger contrast with the fundamentals of the European Union, Human Rights and the general impartiality of the rule of law.